


can you hear my voice this time?

by felinedetached



Category: Wilder Girls — Rory Power
Genre: Body Horror, Evolution But Fast, F/F, You Decide, and she does not regret it, is the tox a character? Idk it’s implied it thinks for itself, is this science or magic? Yes, it’s not like graphic depictions of violence but someone stabs her girlfriends dad, lord of the flies but girls and also gay, read wilder girls my friends its worth it, that’s why it’s magical realism, this is a callout post for hetty chapin—, this is a fic about pain and horror and having your very self torn away, which is terrifying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 04:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21404179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinedetached/pseuds/felinedetached
Summary: Reese can’t help but feel like her body is not her own. It is hers, in the end, but with how the Tox has changed her, she can’t help but feel like parts of it don’t belong to her. Like what it’s done to her arm means that one of her hands might one day refuse to do what she wants it to. Like one day, whatever’s in Hetty’s eye will turn inwards and kill Reese’s best friend. Like Reese’s hair, shiny and gold in a way that can’t be applied to anyone normal, might one day wrap itself around her throat and choke her like she once choked Hetty.
Relationships: Byatt Winsor & Hetty Chapin & Reese Harker, Hetty Chapin/Reese Harker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	can you hear my voice this time?

Reese can’t help but feel like her body is not her own. It is hers, in the end, but with how the Tox has changed her, she can’t help but feel like parts of it don’t belong to her. Like what it’s done to her arm means that one of her hands might one day refuse to do what she wants it to. Like one day, whatever’s in Hetty’s eye will turn inwards and kill Reese’s best friend. Like Reese’s hair, shiny and gold in a way that can’t be applied to anyone normal, might one day wrap itself around her throat and choke her like she once choked Hetty.

Like she is not her own anymore, in whatever way that applies. It’s almost true, what with the Tox. It has taken things from each of them; Byatt’s voice, Hetty’s eye, Reese’s hand. Reese’s _hand._

It hurts, sometimes. Okay, actually— it hurts a lot. It aches; her shoulder does, carrying the extra weight, her scales do, when they rub up against almost _anything_. Her claws make her hand unwieldy and useless, and Reese _hates_ it. She hates it almost as much as she hates what she did to Hetty; almost as much as she hates how her father left her to the school and the Tox.

She hates that she can’t be on gun shift anymore — not when she can’t hold a gun, can’t pull the trigger, can’t fit her new fingers through the trigger guard, can’t, can’t, _can’t_. She hates that her life is made of things she used to be able to do that she can’t anymore and things she used to be able to do well that she can’t perfect anymore.

She hates that she could have killed Hetty if she’d just moved her hand, just slightly.

It’s a new strength, that she has; one that makes her useful on this island — in this separated, post-apocalyptic world that dies as everything else carries on as-usual around it — and she hates it. They were going to leave, after all, and Reese would have been the same as she was in the first months, when she didn’t know her own strength and couldn’t control her own hand.

But even with this pain, with the lack of control and the _changes_, that’s not what she hates the most. No — it’s like this. Reese hates that everyone else, at least, knows that their family is safe. On the mainland. Hetty’s father thinks that Hetty’s dead, but Hetty knows he’s safe. He’s alive.

The last Reese saw of her father, he was choking on his own black blood. The last she saw of her father, Hetty tore a knife through his stomach and left his body to be eaten by foxes.

The last she saw of her father, it wasn’t her father. It was the Tox; a being driven mad, plagued by vines and limbs and blood and fire, trying to kill them the same way all the animals on this island do.

(Reese will never forget the girl from right at the start, whose name she doesn’t now remember. She _does_, however, remember what happened to her — a gun shift girl who couldn’t make the shot, and the girl who had her throat torn out on the front porch as a result.)

But all of that fades away with Hetty, coughing up blood and _worse_, begging her to help her get whatever’s choking her out. Hetty, coughing a human heart onto the deck, even as her own beats firmly in her chest. Hetty, her breath rasping and her weight heavy against Reese’s chest, saying, “It’s trying to help.”

“It’s trying to make me better,” Hetty says, and Reese thinks of Raxter Irises, growing all year round; Raxter Blues, with lungs and gills both.

“It’s trying to make me better,” Hetty says, “but I can’t take it.”

Byatt lies in the bottom of the boat, her hands the ink-black of death, her skin pale and her heartbeat weak. Hetty shivers, fever rising as her next flare-up comes, harsh and painful as always.

“Calm down,” Reese says, because that’s all she can say. She heaves Hetty in, pulls her up to rest against her chest. “It’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” Hetty says. It’s a lie, one Reese and Hetty both know all too well, but it’s one Reese hopes will come true. “I just need to rest.”

“You’re going to be okay,” Reese says, wraps her arms tighter around her best friend — her girlfriend, maybe, even though they haven’t talked about it (god, Reese _needs_ them to live long enough to talk about it) — feeling the warmth of Hetty’s body against her chest. “You saved me. Now I’m going to save you.”

Hetty drifts off to sleep, lulled by the rocking of the boat and the warmth of Reese’s arms, and Reese sits for a while longer, guiding the boat and watching the waves.


End file.
